


The Sea of Gold

by kell_be_belle



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Ficlet, Light Angst, no beta we die like renfri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:08:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26831923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kell_be_belle/pseuds/kell_be_belle
Summary: Geralt has some feelings while fulfilling a contract
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54





	The Sea of Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a [fanart](https://hehearse.tumblr.com/post/631057612855754752/%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B9-%D0%BC%D1%8B-%D0%BD%D0%B5-%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8-check-out-sordidsaovine-for-more) by @hehearse on tumblr

The payment was not much, Geralt knew that even before he tugged on the pouch’s drawstring and inspected the small collection of coins inside. The town was little more than a hovel; a tightly knit collection of thatched cottages so beaten by the passage of time they seemed to be leaning into each other for support. A stiff wind could have probably sent them toppling one after the other like a line of dominoes. He had known the reward would not be much as he loped into town upon Roach’s back, but curiosity had drawn him to the home of the contract giver anyway. 

The man who had commissioned him was sallow and drawn. His eyes and cheeks were sunken so deeply he looked more skeleton than man. The village was clearly destitute and all its inhabitants shared the same beggared appearance, but this man seemed particularly so. It was evident he knew hunger from lack of bread. It was evident he knew toil from long days in the fields under the scorch of the sun. It was evident that he had been beaten just as thoroughly as the ramshackle village in which he lived. But still there was something more. Something deeper and more profound. 

The man then placed something else on the table beside the meager offering of coins. His hand did not tremble as he did so. It was a doll. A worn and bedraggled thing sewn from the scraps of rags and burlap sacks. Its appearance was not appealing, however it was clear it had been very much loved. Geralt had seen a handful of children as he had ridden into the village, but he would bet his last oren that none of them belonged to the man. Had a child, the child of the man, fallen prey to the beast he had been commissioned to slay?

Geralt glanced about the hut. There was a collection of dirtied shirts and trousers in the corner by the palliasse whose thin blanket remained tossed and rumpled. The ashes in the hearth were unswept, the pot hanging above it caked in a thick layer of unwashed gruel. The upkeep of the house had not been seen to in some time yet the palliasse was too large for a single person to sleep upon. 

And then Geralt understood. 

The child had not been the prey. They had been the catalyst. 

The man couldn’t even offer Geralt a word. There was no elaboration of his sad tale. There was no apology for the lack of coin nor a plea for him to accept the meager offering. The man only looked at Geralt with such a defeatedness that made something cold settle under the witcher’s skin. Made something bitter slick the inside of his stomach. Decades spent wandering the path. Decades spent being hardened in the heat of its unrelenting forge and still there were times when Geralt felt himself new again. Felt himself a more malleable, more naive man who had looked upon the feeble and downtrodden and thought himself their savior. That man was dead and had been buried long ago, yet it seemed his ghost haunted Geralt, still. 

Geralt offered the man no word, just as none had been offered him. Words were not necessary. Geralt and this man shared a silent understanding and it would have been callous to infringe upon it with something as frivolous as a collection of syllables. Instead, the witcher looked at him for a long moment then rose from the rickety chair in which he was seated. He took the doll gingerly and tucked it into the pouch at his hip. He left the coins in their pouch where they had been placed on the table. 

Geralt mounted Roach and trotted a couple miles out from the village where the wheat grew wild and thick. A vast, never ending sea of gold. He tied her off in a copse of trees to spare her the heat and she knickered contentedly. The witcher patted her neck as she bent to nibble a clump of dry grass. The field around them was ablaze in the light of the sun and it glared with such brilliance that Geralt had to adjust his eyes against it. High noon was fast approaching. It would not be long now. 

Geralt busied himself with the arranging of his potions and the oiling of his sword as the sun reached its zenith. The wheat in the distance had begun to quiver and sway as if dancing, yet the air around him was still. Not so much as a breeze cooled the sweat that started to bead on his neck nor muse his milky hair which started to cling to it. He made no move for his sword. He would not until the last moment possible. Instead, the witcher drew the doll from the pouch at his hip, held it by its strumpy, raggedy hand.

The air in the distance shimmered like refractions of light on the surface of water. In the haze he could see something beginning to take shape. A limp tangle of hair, the twisted boughs of arms, and the delicate gossamer of a veil. The mouth of the noonwraith yawned wide as if forever trapped in a soundless cry of agony. Geralt looked upon the knot of flowers and brambles upon her head and felt sadness. This was not the defeatedness of the man in the derelict down. This was not the cold and slick that clung like the dampness of the mist. This was something harsh and searing. Something that burned and burned and left nothing behind, but the ashes of things that once were and never would be again. 

Geralt, once more, felt himself old and tired. Felt himself raw and aching at the same time like the overlaying of fresh wounds upon old scars. 

Geralt clutched the hand of the doll within his own and waded into the sea of gold.


End file.
